Spraying devices have been designed for a number of applications for the purpose of increasing the ability to rapidly and uniformly apply liquids to a variety of surfaces. One important application for which sprayers have proved valuable is their use by painters. Prior art devices such as paint rollers and brushes take substantially more time to cover a given unit of surface area than do paint spraying systems. In addition, paint sprayers are able to provide a more uniformed distribution of paint on a given surface. As a result, paint sprayers have enjoyed widespread use in the painting industry.
One problem associated with the use of paint sprayers is the amount of time and effort required to properly clean a paint sprayer nozzle. Due to the amount of time required to properly clean a paint sprayer nozzle, some of the benefit of using it in place of prior art painting devices is lost. It would be desirable to have a method of rapidly cleaning paint sprayer nozzles to reduce the amount of turnaround time between paint jobs.
In an effort to improve turnaround time, cleaning chambers were developed to reduce the amount of time required to clean a paint sprayer nozzle. Prior art cleaning chambers are typically metal chambers which have a series of solvent sprayers arranged in the corner of the chamber. In practice, a paint sprayer nozzle is disassembled, placed in the chamber, and then sprayed with a solvent which dissolves any paint residue to prepare the paint sprayer nozzle for use with another paint. A problem associated with this type of cleaning chamber is that it is designed for general purpose use with paint sprayers as well as any number of other devices that can be cleaned with solvent. Because of their general-purpose nature, these are cleaning chambers are not designed to clean a paint sprayer nozzle in the most efficient manner, but rather to provide a device for cleaning a variety of objects. Of course, when paint colors are changed, the presence of paint from a previous job can result in distortions in the color of the subsequent job.
Because residue paint having one paint color can have a disastrous effect when the paint sprayer nozzle is used to paint with a different paint color, a paint sprayer nozzle must be meticulously cleaned to ensure that all traces of the previously used paint are removed. Unfortunately, the general purpose cleaning chambers used in the prior art are not capable of adequately cleaning a complex mechanical structure such as a paint sprayer nozzle.
In addition to distortion of color caused by paint residue of one color mixing with new paint having any second color, paint residue can cause other severe problems. For example, when paint residue builds up in a paint nozzle, it may distort the spray pattern of the paint nozzle, resulting in uneven distribution of paint from the sprayer which will result in an unsatisfactory paint job which may have to be redone. As a result, it is very important to ensure that the components of the paint sprayer are carefully and thoroughly cleaned to avoid defective paint jobs caused by dry paint residue.
While addressing the basic desirability of cleaning paint sprayer nozzles between uses, the prior art has failed to provide a cleaning device which can be adjusted to clean each individual part in a paint sprayer, which can be retrofitted to pre-existing sprayers, and which has a minimum number of components.